I have 7 Kakarikis, 5 hens and 2 cocks. 3 are the standard red-fronted and the others are a mix of Lutino and olive. They are all very playful, inquisitive and fun to have around. Their excited chatter can be heard easily and their acrobatics are amazing.

They love to play games, and hide and seek. One of my older hen birds does a very realistic play dead game, and frightens me half to death. They will take food out of your hand, but its on their terms :-)

For some reason my Kakarikis seem to have taken a big liking to corn flakes, and other breakfast cereals, and they love their fruit, especially when they get to throw it at me.


****Up date 6th June 2001***
I had 2 new Kakarikis arrive today, a breeding pair. From the off they look like a pair of Olives, but when you look closely at the hen, she has a Lutino split somewhere, with cinnamon. They are both very badly plucked but hopefully left to fly free in the aviary they will soon get their feathers back.

11th July,

All the Kakarikis, including the new pair have settled very well into their new home. They especially like their new rope perches and spend hours playing on the new swings.

UPDATE 30TH DECEMBER 2001

Our community of Kakarikis are all doing well, they are very much the jokers and are very bright and sparkly. We were thinking of adding a few more Kakarikis but decided against it.

21st April 2002

Sadly we lost one of our old hens a couple of weeks ago, its very noticeable as she was one of the bravest we had, always running after me in the aviary and taking food out of my hand. All the other Kakarikis are fine and enjoying the spring weather.

31st July 2002,

All the Kakarikis are doing well, they still love their fruit and veg but are a bit down because of the rain.


17th July 2003

Its with a heavy heart that I have to update with the news that we only have one Kakariki remaining. At our old address our aviary was broken into by rats and in one night they killed so many birds, they used the darkenss to get close to the birds and we did not hear anything to make us think anything was going on, it was not until the following morning when I found all the bodies that I knew what had happened. I lost some real good friends, and my heart aches for them.

7th January 2004

Well our single Kaki is still thriving.  He did get very depressed for a while and turned into a bit of a moper, but now that he is sharing with some cockatiels he seems to be loving life again.  He loves his fruit and vegetables and likes to rummage around until he finds a piece that he really wants.

22nd June 2005

The one Kakariki is still going strong, he is living with some budgies, java sparrows, a love bird and a senegal (Wazz) his friend. He still loves all his fresh fruits & loves to chatter to me first thing in the morning.